Timelines of computer history usually take us back to the early 20th century and no further. But believe it or not, a tinkerer named Charles Babbage got close enough to creating the world's first computer in 1837. Babbage called his machine the "analytical engine" and it would have been the size of a small locomotive, powered by steam. He wrote thousands of pages of notes and 250 drawings, but it never got close to being built -- until now.

Today a few of his modern-day contemporaries are raising money to work off Babbage's original plans and build his "analytical engine," using tools and processes from the time he was alive. That was a good century before Alan Turing kicked off what we now call the computer age.

John Graham-Cumming, director of the project known as Plan 28, wants to raise £250,000 (about $400,000) for the first two stages of the project, which will span over two to three years. Stage one will involve more fully researching Babbage's engine; stage two will see the researchers create a 3D computer simulation of the machine. Plan 28 had looked into using Kickstarter to raise funds, then balked at the 10% commission the fundraising site charged. Now it's relying on donations via the website JustGiving.com.

Researchers have already re-built another machine based off Babbage's plans, known as Difference Engine No. 2, which is currently at the Science Museum in London and works with the help of a hand crank. But the Analytical Engine was a later invention of Babbage's, and far more sophisticated.

Plan 28's technical director, Doron Swade, says it was the "first design to embody just about every logical principle of the modern digital computer, but using cogs and levers. We can't wait to see if it works."

Though the machine will probably need some de-bugging along the way, Graham Cumming says he's "quietly confident" that itwill work: "Babbage describes quite clearly all the major components of the machine. All those things are there. It's more a question of mechanically can this machine operate at this scale? Would it jam all the time? Would it be reliable?" Some of the machine's more critical parts include long chains and gears, and the researchers still don't know if they will work properly together when running some of the programs that had been prepared for it.

Building a machine this large would have been difficult in the early 19th Century -- but besides that, Babbage himself didn't get round to seeing the finished product for two big reasons:

1) He'd got most of his funding from the British government, but kept exasperating the paymasters by changing his mind all the time. "He spent a fortune," says Graham Cumming.

2) He kept getting into feuds with people. One of Babbage's biggest rivals was the astronomer and pragmatic government advisor George Biddell Airy, who called the machine "useless."

Babbage also became exasperated with the "British mentality" on creating and marketing inventions. "He thought, if you show a British person an invention like this they'd think up all the bad things about it," says Graham Cumming. "If you show an American they'd think, 'How can I make money from this?' He actually considered touring America to raise money for it."

A closeup of the London Science Museum's replica difference engine, built from Babbage's design (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Babbage's designs were borne out of his obsession with mathematics. He wanted the machine to calculate complicated sums, and act as an extension to the large logs that bookkeepers of his era were using. As such the finished product might not have ushered in some of the high-tech trappings you see in steam punk fiction, but the British government probably would have used it to help expand their then-Empire, by tracking trade.

"The only people who would have been able to afford it was the government," says Graham Cumming. "I don't think we would have seen people with a mini version."